Sorry but that’s just such a misleading way to view the game. Just because a skill is relatively easy to perform for an 1700 player doesn’t invalidate it being a skill. It’s just that an 1700 player will have a wider repertoire of skills in general (and better execution) than a 1100 player.
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I don’t do it myself precisely because it is micro intensive and I can barely manage my eco back home. But I would certainly do it if I was more skilled at managing my eco and lame my opponent at the same time.
Anything goes, and everything is fair game.
Also LOL at the guy a few posts above stating that laming is purely based on luck.
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I hate the idea of the “magical” no-attack until feudal much more than laming itself.
I think laming should be discouraged by balance in an organic way but not banned.
I don´t like o do it, don’t like to deal with it but is perfectly fair to chose laming as an strategy.
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I have the following thoughts:
Laming in RM vs competitive tournaments is different.
imo Laming in RM is ok
In tournaments its up to the organisers whether they think it will be entertaining/good for the tourney
There is luck involved
There is skill involved
There are trade offs (scout hp/not finding your resources and or just not finding theirs)
Certain maps are made for mess/laming (see Socotra - imagine not laming on that one)
It can win you the game
It can lose you the game
I happy for changes to be made
I don’t want it to be removed
On the whole I like that it’s there, I do it ~30% of the time. I often find that I have TC idle time or lose a vill at home luring a boar while stealing a boar, or my sheep get stolen in return. If you say then that I’m just not good at it, I would argue it’s a skill and rewarding skill is important. However there is luck too, and luck makes for interesting games (gold positions/ wood lines/ hills are all also luck).
Cheers for reading
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It really isnt that hard. If your scout is out of position you cant prevent it. If you have two forward boars you have to severely cripple your own eco or scouting to make sure they arent lamed.
If you want to take back your sheep the enemy scout just kills them. Its really not that much of a skill. Yeah, its kind of fair game cause its possible but it also is just too luck dependend. I wont blame someone for doing it, i ocassionally do it myself, but it should be harder.
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As a main Vietnamese player…
I like sheep laming.
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11 I need 20 characters so here you go 11
anything goes in age I think strategies become more crazy if they involve laming its part of the game. I have a lot of player in my videos who lame and a lot that choice not to. their is no right way to play Age but you shouldnt be angry that some one else is play Age differently then you are.
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ruthless 
but fun haha
I really want to get the game… and for a while I’ve been focussed on the Vietnamese.
How good of a difference would let us say 150 food for Lithuanians be versus the Viets who get to see where the enemy starts on the mini-map.
If I leave my base with a scout after checking for my sheep and such and a Lithuanian player gets to have a stronger start with more efficient Villager-time spent towards gathering all sheep & pushing deer, etc. how many sheep would I have to kill to come out on balance with that and how much more extra effort would I have to put in just to balance that situation out.
If killing or stealing sheep were to be taken out of the game or ‘mannered play’, then I’d immediately be calling for the Vietnamese to get a separate and better bonus, because they have a CRAP late game ‘gain gold from chopping wood’ tech and really nothing special towards their military. So if they’re going to be crap in terms of economy bonuses, crap because they can’t harass & then still won’t get a buff/change… then just delete them from the game and move on.
I like the idea of not being able to do this, I really don’t mind it too much - maybe with a timer or something. But I think there are consequences that would need to be dealt with even though it’s a tiny change.
When Definitive Edition and the rest finally go on sale again & I can get it… I was going to do an in-depth look into the resource economy from a 150 food starting Lithuanian to a ‘I SEE YOU’ Viet player - and see how much difference those bonuses give with & without killing sheep, stealing boar, etc.
That bonus for Viet seems useless if you don’t make a move like this at the start… even then it seems like a fair bit of focus & APM directed towards it for mild gains.
You realize this thread was made 2y ago? 
Gonna answer your question anyway. But first, a short disclaimer: I think its very weird to compare civ bonuses and assume they would have to be of equal or even similar strength. Eg if you look at the spanish bonuses, they are pretty underwhelming overall; but a strong UU and a very wide tech tree make them work anyways. The only thing that easily compare are pure eco bonuses, eg the difference of port berry bonus to celt faster wood chopping.
That beeing said, the 150 food of lith is a lot better than some modest laming for several reasons. First of all, its very flexible: You can use it to go to wood instantly for a very early dock (on hybrid maps), you can use it for a faster drush, you can click up a bit faster the get a nice scout rush, and so on. Second, laming sheep is not that big of a deal early on as you wont be eating sheep anyway; you want boar/deer. Later on, having more sheep just means you save some wood for farms (and your opponent has to go to farms earlier), but that kicks in somewhat late. Overall, id say you need to kill 4 sheep or steal 3 to make laming better than 150 starting food; but its really hard to pin it down to a number and it depends a lot on circumstances.
Anyway, hope you get to play this amazing game and try it out yourself soon!
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I know it was 2 years ago, I just skipped past a separate comment that approximately said what I said just in a single sentence. Absolutely aspects of the game have changed, but I’ve come across this point/post a dozen times just in 3 or 4 minutes of searching it up which span the past 10-12 years. I thought this discussion looked quite good - if not the best. So wanted to chime in too.
But for me it’s not about them being the same it’s about is there actually any use in one of them. What I was hoping to suggest was looking at it relationally to another thing/one/civilisation bonus that happens at the same period of the game (at the start). Which could help one come up with distinctions for positives, negatives & what is largely equal… but also it can help one determine what is meaningless or useless.
And your comment/ideas went exactly where mine did & I’m glad you thought about the situation I put forward… I just was throwing it out there almost philosophically (as an example of a philosophical question - ‘what amount of pain, discomfort & life lived in inhumane conditions equals 1 death’)?
But it’s AoE II & THERE is/ought to be in-game tests & thought experiments done on even small aspects of the game. So thanks again for thinking about it.
Laming is lame, especially also because all the best laming civs (Mongols, Mayans) normally are faster in Feudal age than the “slower civs” like Koreans or Burmese.
It is fine if a civ like Burmese lames Mongols, when the opposite happens, generally your only window to do damage as Burmese (Feudal Age) is gone and you are fighting on the backfoot until Imp where it would be an even game otherwise).
In short, stronger civs laming weaker civs often creates even more lopsided games, but it is generally fine if a weaker civ (Bengalis) lames a stronger one (say Mayans).